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Hawke
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Hawke
Unavailable
Hawke
Ebook614 pages9 hours

Hawke

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

While sailing in the Caribbean, young Alex Hawke witnesses an act of unspeakable horror as modern-day pirates brutally murder his parents. It is a tragedy that will haunt him forever and shape his destiny.

As a direct descendant of a legandary English pirate, Lord Alexander Hawke is skilled in the ways of sea combat - and one of Britain's most decorated naval heroes. Now, Hawke returns to the Caribbean on a secret mission for the American government. A highly experimental stealth submarine is missing. She carries forty nuclear warheads, and is believed to be in the hands of an unstable government just ninety miles from the US mainland. In a race against time, Hawke must locate the sub before a strike can be launched against the US - and, after a lifetime of nightmares, finally avenge himself on the mean who slaughtered his family . . .
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 4, 2008
ISBN9781847395689
Author

Ted Bell

Ted Bell is the former chairman of the board and worldwide creative director of Young & Rubicam, one of the world's largest advertising agencies. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hawke, Assassin, Pirate, Spy, and Tsar. He is also the author of a series of young adult adventure novels Nick of Time and The Time Pirate. He lives in Florida and Colorado.

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Reviews for Hawke

Rating: 3.3389831440677966 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

177 ratings20 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fun action packed book with pirates, political coups, and political intrigue. Fans of James Bond, Clive Cussler will love this book.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Bits of it are quite good. Bits of of it are mediocre. Large chunks of it are sloppy and badly written. All in all, a painful experience. If you're expecting Fleming, you won't find him here.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    В общем не могу понять как к сожалению я л
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really loved this adventure. It has a bit of everything and I couldn't put the the darn thing down. Exciting to the nth degree with the right amount of romance and intrigue.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    In the quest for a superhero, the author has given his character too much history and too many qualifications. The writing seemed to come from an amateur, obsessed with John Wayne and James Bond. The pages seemed to be a collection of clichés, interrupted by name dropping. I wonder if by the end of the book, he named every star in Hollywood. I didn't even like the title. After reading 10%, I gave up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Alex Hawke's story is captivating and exciting. You will be swept away by the young boy who loses his family and the life he lives because of that fateful day. Ted Bell is a fabulous author. I highly recommend his work! Start with Hawke and enjoy a thrilling ride.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I enjoyed this book! There's nothing like a good adventure/suspense/thriller! After all, that's why the Bond series is still thrilling audiences. Bell's character, "Hawke" fills just such a position. He has it all. Looks, wealth, skills that border on unbelievable and pull with those in power. This first novel in the Alex Hawke series was a great get-away for those times when you just need to kick back and enjoy the ride. I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Ian Fleming, Clive Cussler or even James Rollins.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fast paced and an easy read. This is my first book by Bell and I think I'd like to read more. His Alex Hawk is just on the edge of unbelievable, but Bell pulls it off.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Today's book is given to you by the letter "C." Cheesy, campy, cartoony and cliche-ridden. We meet Lord Alexander Hawke, the "hero" of this novel in the prologue when he's seven-years-old. Pirates board his family yacht in search of a treasure map. Apparently a descendent of the original owner of the treasure centuries ago just happens to catch wind that the descendent of the privateer that supposedly stole it is sailing on his yacht, and Alex's father, who doesn't know this nevertheless thinks to put the treasure map into his son's pocket before hiding him when he suspects there are intruders aboard. Quel coincidence! Alex watches while pirates festooned with a spider tattoo that spouts a sprinkling of cartoon villain Spanish murders his parents. The orphan is then raised by his grandfather and grows up "a expert in the art of blowing things up and killing people silently with a knife or one's bare hands." When we next see Alex all grown up, he takes on three punks, breaking a clavicle of one who blocks his way and taking on him and his friends with relish. Oh, and the villain? He's lost all color in his iris because he was held in the darkness too long. See what I mean about cartoony and campy? Also, too many exclamation points. And much, much too much testosterone.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Prologue and the last 10 or so chapters pulled this book from a two star to a three star. Had the middle part been cut down to about 50-100 pages, Ted Bell’s “Hawke” would have been a much tighter, more exciting novel.Alexander Hawke is a very unoriginal character. He’s a dashing good looking British multi-millionaire with butlers, a huge yacht, a seaplane and a super-charged speed boat (both of which fit into the yacht, don’t you know). Not only is he all that, but both the British and US governments hire him from time to time to take on secret missions for them. Really? So Hawke can handle missions better than the MI6, the CIA, etc.?We start off meeting Hawke out on his family’s yacht when he’s barely seven. Hawke’s ancestry includes the infamous Blackbeard, so they’re down in the Caribbean looking for treasure with the legendary pirate’s map. Bad guy Cubans sneak on board and brutally kill Hawke’s parents (Blackbeard had killed their ancestors so they wanted revenge). His father puts the child into a small locker for protection just as the pirates board the ship. Hawke sees the murders undetected and is found three days later by authorities. He grows up with his great grandfather and becomes an all-everything, suppressing the horror he saw as a child.It’s the next 400 pages that could have been reduced significantly. He’s hired by the US State Department to look into the sale of some Russian weaponry to Cuba. Very quickly, he discovers what’s been sold and alerts America. Cuba gets taken over (ironically by the same three pirates—brothers—who killed Hawke’s parents) and an American sailor serving at Guantanamo Bay is coerced into getting a biological weapon inside the base. Hawke’s girlfriend survives a bomb explosion at a restaurant, then she’s abducted, etc., etc. It’s only the last 175 that really ramps up with action.I’ve not given up on Ted Bell or his Hawke character yet, but I won’t plod through another if it gets bogged down as the first one did. I’m hoping that now the deal with him remembering what happened to his parents is over, his next adventures will be tighter.I also found it odd that Bell would sometimes inject a piece of dialect within dialogue, but not consistently. For example, there’s a Bahamian speaking and right in the middle of the paragraph we get a “dat” and a “mon.” But elsewhere when he speaks, we read “that.” I say you go all or nothing.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Fair, I guess. As an earlier reviewer mentioned, the use of "Britishisms" is often borderline absurd. It certainly can get to be annoying. And while I assume the author was going for his version of James Bond, I found some of it beyond sensible. Primarily, I found Hawke's thoughts and behavior after making his "breakthrough" wholly unbelievable and out of character. SPOILER ALERT! The woman he is supposedly madly in love with is dead, but he feels "exquisitely light" and "buoyant" because he's remembered that he witnessed his parents being brutally murdered? This is utterly unbelievable. Never mind his lover's "death," no one would feel buoyant after finally getting back the suppressed memory of their parents' horrific torture and murder. If you somehow can overlook this absurd bit of the story, and if you don't mind reading trite expressions like "old boy," that have been repeated ad nauseum, then by all means, read the book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Ummm... this book is so boring and long-winded and full of itself and so pseudo-British: chap, fellow, tip, nip, bobby, copper ... and the list of Britishisms that the author uses is ridiculous. It's like he thinks that every British person speaks with every idiosyncrasy of their language. They don't. They might call a man a bloke, and a cop a copper but they don't also call him a chap and a bobby and... oh the list goes on. I have no idea if Ted Bell is British or not, or if he's ever even been to England, or if he learned all his Britishisms from Coronation Street. But, anyway, this book is so ridiculous in its writing style that I can't even get into what the plot is like.Superman meets the Thunderbirds meets Prince Charles = Hawke.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    a vast collection of trite expressions and wide variety of dialogue styles none of which ring true. Worst book I've read this year.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Fast paced but very disappointing thriller. Main characters are English and Ted Bell, an American, is a million miles from being able to write English voices. Lady Penelope (the puppet)in the kids TV show "Thunderbirds" was bad, but more realistic than "Hawke". Most of the "Thunderbirds" plot lines were better as well! Sterotype characters and scenes. Lots of inaccurate technical details which always destroy books for me. It seems to sell well, but God knows why... Scores very high on the crapometer.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Hawke is a superman: rich, intelligent, strong, handsome, fast, and completely unbelievable
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't know about you, but the longer an author's backlist is, the more hesitant I am to begin reading a series. One the bright side, you won't be waiting on pins and needles for a sequel, but there's a lot of territory to catch up on. I've been buying Ted Bell's Alexander Hawke thrillers since the very first one was published. Now that there are five books in this series, I've finally gotten around to reading the first one. Debut novels are often rough. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The novel's prologue recounts what is likely the single most traumatic experience of Alex Hawke's life--the cold-blooded murder of his parents when he was seven years old. Young Alex witnessed the whole thing, but has blocked the events from his memory. It's a terrible start on life, but Alex has a few advantages as well. He's the scion of a wealthy and influential British family. He's raised by a loving grandfather and given all the best advantages in life. After the prologue we meet the adult Alex Hawke. In addition to being a captain of industry, he does covert jobs for the British and American governments. That's not as random as it seems. As a younger man, Alex had served with distinction in the special forces of the military. He has ties to the rich and powerful everywhere. And business interests around the globe provide the ideal cover for his presence in hot spots. In this case, the hot spot is Cuba. Hawke is instructed to find who has bought a very dangerous submarine, but what he finds in addition is a coup d'état ninety miles off the US coast. What's more, the situation has gotten very personal when the bad guys drag Hawke's girlfriend Victoria into the mix. Fortunately, Hawke has backup. Aside from the American government he's working for, he's brought his own most trusted allies. Foremost among them is Ambrose Congreve, a semi-retired Scotland Yard inspector, and Hawke's closest friend. Also, there is Stokely Jones, a former New York cop who acts as Hawke's body guard and Chief of Security. Hawke has surrounded himself with a loyal team that would go to hell and back for him. I expect we'll get to know each of them better as the series progresses. As I mentioned above, it's a strong debut. The writing is fine and the pacing is good. The plot featured some good twists and turns, and even had a fun buried pirate treasure sub-plot. Hawke's a character you can build a series around, and while his extreme wealth and other gifts are a bit preposterous, it's kind of fun to see how the other .00001 percent lives. (Was I the only one sort of picturing Richard Branson as I read the book?) There was really only one thing I had a big problem with, and oddly enough it was one of the supporting characters. Specifically, it was Stokely Jones, who spoke all of his lines in an ignorant and affected dialect. An example, "Ain't far. See all them Christmas lights hanging in the trees on that island over there? Only a couple of miles. We could swim it, but Mr. Congreve, he old fashioned." Not only is it annoying to read, I found it somewhat insulting to a minority of which I'm not a member. I really hope it gets toned down in subsequent novels. And I guess I'll find out, as based on this debut, I plan to move forward with the series. I'm looking forward to getting a better handle on Alex Hawke, and seeing how the supporting cast continues to develop.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I think that Ted Bell wanted to create the next Dirk Pitt or James Bond. Unfortunately, he tried to do too much in his first novel and, as if that didn't create enough of a problem, the book read too much like a first novel. Certain characters seemed way too contrived or stereotypical and certain plot elements seemed to simply vanish (the McGuffin disappeared far too early) or be forgotten about. Bell has some neat ideas; hopefully the next Alexander Hawke novel will be better. I'm willing to give it a try (although I'm not quite sure why...).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this after having read subsequent books featuring Alex Hawke. Even knowing the outcome of this opening novel, I still enjoyed the read. I prefer the audio versions of Bell's books, though.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is an interesting book, though not my standard fare. I admit I picked it up when I saw a description of a pirate in the book flap. Also the title being about a bird, I was drawn in to the story.It starts slow, granting details as this is the first book of this series. It establishes a well traveled and knowledgeable main character. The villian is strong and mostly intelligent, so they work for the way the book runs. It reminds me of Bond meets Jack Sparrow. Not sure if I will continue reading this series, but it was a good read to end the year with.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hawke was a definite departure for me—this is not the normal type of book I read. However, I did find it quite an entertaining read. Alex Hawke is a cross between a rich playboy and James Bond. This book was a romp through the Caribbean with guns and Cubans and military and kidnapping and explosions and pirates and buried gold and everything else a guy would want in a movie. In fact, it’d probably make a great action movie.One of my favorite parts was the snatch and grab mission with Thunder and Lightning, they were cool characters with a way cool job. Stokely was great, too. And Hawke’s parrot, Sniper, had too small a part.I don’t remember how I first found out about this series, but now I’m hooked and glad I bought the others (used, in hardback) for my library.